How Jeff Lebby sees Mississippi State football running back competition before preseason practice

New Mississippi State football coach Jeff Lebby said he's still looking for a lead running back to assert himself from a group of contenders.

The Bulldogs will use more than one back, Lebby indicated at SEC Media Days last week. But when asked about the most significant remaining questions for his roster with preseason practice looming, Lebby pointed toward the top of his running back depth chart.

Mississippi State's top three rushers from a season ago have either moved on or will be unavailable in 2024. Jo'quavious Marks transferred to USC. Mike Wright ‒ a quarterback ‒ will play for Northwestern. And Seth Davis, who averaged six yards per carry in a promising freshman season, "won't be back" in 2024 after suffering a knee injury in last year's Egg Bowl, Lebby said.

"You got a guy like Keyvone (Lee) that, again, had a good spring," Lebby said. "Johnnie Daniels was banged up, then had a good spring game and was good late in the spring. (Jeffery Pittman) obviously coming back as well, and then adding Davon (Booth) was a huge piece of it."

Among the returners, Pittman produced the strongest 2023 campaign, rushing 54 times for 268 yards and a touchdown. Lee appeared in eight games after transferring from Penn State, accumulating 75 yards and 12 attempts.

Lebby added a pair of newcomers. 247Sports ranked Daniels as its top junior college running back after he posted over 100 rushing yards per game at Copiah-Lincoln last year. Booth achieved remarkable efficiency at Utah State in 2023, averaging 6.3 yards on his way to an 805-yard season.

"That room is going to be by committee a little bit," Lebby said. "I do really like where Keyvone is. Those guys gotta continue to come on and continue to push each other."

The data backs that up. Since Lebby took his first offensive coordinator job at UCF in 2019, he has never coached a running back who has received more than 37% of his team's available carries.

That's helped his offenses stay on the right side of the national rushing efficiency curve. In the last five seasons, Lebby's offenses have ranked ‒ on average ‒ 38th in the country in yards per rush. The Bulldogs, by comparison, have not finished above 80th nationally in rushing efficiency since 2019.

Lebby hopes his committee approach will have a positive impact on the locker room, too.

"The cool thing for them is that they know they're going to continue to have opportunities inside of what we do," he said.

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David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: How Jeff Lebby sees Mississippi State football running back competition before preseason practice